


Ashe and The Loop

by SuddenWhispers



Series: In The Cards [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 03:41:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21686977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SuddenWhispers/pseuds/SuddenWhispers
Summary: Ashe wants the break the cycle.
Relationships: Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert & Ingrid Brandl Galatea, Ashe Duran | Ashe Ubert/Ingrid Brandl Galatea
Series: In The Cards [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1519295
Comments: 1
Kudos: 23





	Ashe and The Loop

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for cinnnamon roll best boi Ashe!

_**Ashe and The Loop  
\--** _

Ashe is most at home in the streets below Garreg Mach. Perhaps it is because he remembers a time when similar streets were home.  


On this crisp, autumn day, those streets are full. The upcoming anniversary of the Church has come early this year, because Ashe cannot buy the crabs at low moon price just yet. There is electricity in the air, high strung with the preparations of both festivities and the preparation of. It must come from the merchants wanting to make use of the nobles’ desires to celebrate while the children of these merchants, blissfully unaware of what it means to celebrate the church, run the streets with chalk in hand, quite literally painting the town a myriad of colors.The hearty scent of roasted chestnuts rise with the wind from the vendors that line the streets for an easy snack before heading to pay their respects to the goddess. 

Ashe himself isn’t particularly devout, though he could never say that while studying at the Monastery. What did it mean - to be one with the church, to be a follower of Seiros?

He remembers the church through the eyes of a child. The spires of the Monastery had loomed high in the sky, piercing the clouds in the distance. From where he stood at the foot of the mountain, the church seemed unattainable, some pristine idea that hope and fairness existed. He also remembers the noblemen, the supposed followers of the church who had turned a blind eye when he and his people needed them most. How he had to go on his hands and knees on the bad days and beg on the even worse days just for enough food to keep his siblings from crying at night. 

He continues to push his way through the crowds, hands close enough to reach into the pockets of unsuspecting nobles and make away with spoils. He has to shake the thought out of his mind, grasping his hand with the other to stop himself. He isn’t about that life anymore. He hasn’t been for a long time.

But old habits die hard, and his hand grazes the pocket of the man in front of him. 

Memories of countless, faceless nobles with their heavy pockets appear in his mind. And at their backs, an unsuspecting child, hair grayed beyond his years, crouching like a tiger waiting for opportunity to fall into his favor. 

Ashe shakes his head. He isn’t that kid anymore. He can do better.

So with the change in his hand from his purchase of crabs, he slips the coins into the man’s pockets and shoves his way forward. 

The man instinctively clutches the opening of his pockets and shoots a discerning look at Ashe, for which Ashe must bow in silent apology for seeming suspicious. Another habit from the streets. 

When he reaches the mouth of the Monastery with his groceries of the day, he opens his wallet and counts the remainder of his budget. Three-fifty, that’s cutting it close, he thinks to himself. But then he remembers the man in front of him, the one with accusing eyes, and suddenly Ashe feels better about the money.

He thinks of where that money could possibly go towards. How that money, however small in amount, could be the difference between a life of unemployment or a career, an education or a drop out, food for dinner or the wait until the next possible meal. Would he even notice that his pockets feel a little heavier than before? Would that meager amount even matter to him?

Later that afternoon, he meets Ingrid, his cooking partner assigned for the day at the dining hall kitchen. Ingrid already has the stove running and the oven ignited, making the entire hall toasted and warm in time for the evening autumn chill. She smiles in greeting and he returns the favor. He is secretly grateful for the professor’s placing of assignments this week and is already running through the list of old tales in his head that he has saved for conversation.

He isn’t worried about Ingrid. She is as reliable as she is intelligent and is well known amongst their peers for her steadfast nature both on and off the battlefield. Once, she had managed to placate the entire class during the dreaded exercise in which they were to survive overnight in the snowy peaks surrounding the monastery. He knows he is lucky to have found a friend in her.

“Were you able to get away with some good deals today, Ashe?” Ingrid takes the paper bags from one of Ashe’s arms to lighten his load. An impish grin curls her lips. “Will we be able to brag to the professor about having the most savings this week?” 

When Ashe shakes his head with a sheepish grin across his face, Ingrid cannot help but question why. For the only known person able to drive down Anna’s hard prices, Ingrid can only hide the slight gape of her mouth.

“Don’t tell the professor,” Ashe starts, “but I used some of the grocery allowance to pay my respects to the goddess.” It wasn’t exactly a blatant lie in his opinion - part of him had placed the extra change in that nobleman’s pocket as penance for Ashe’s own past. He knows it’s a small and insignificant action, but perhaps it was the festivities in the air that made him feel as if he had to do  _ something _ to repent. 

“Oh.”

Silence stretches between them and sits uncomfortably between them. Ingrid, who is keen on letting others know when they are wrong, is usually quick in her words and lessons. But now, Ashe remains in the center of this quiet limbo in which he’s uncertain whether she’s angry, disappointed, or simply without words.

Ashe is the first to break the silence. “I know it’s not much of a secret, but I grew up on the same streets that I see children in need running through whenever I go into town. I understand their plight well - back then, we had no choice.” Going through numerous dumpsters under moonlit shadows, being kicked to the curb until his ribs beneath his shirt bloomed black and blue, the memories are still painful to recall. “I wonder...will the goddess forgive me for doing what I needed to do to survive?” Would the goddess forgive him for living a life he didn’t ask for?

“I don’t know,” she says more curtly than intended. But she sees the surprise in Ashe’s widened eyes and quickly comes up with a more appropriate answer. “What I mean to say is, I wouldn’t know what the goddess is thinking. It’s up to her alone to pass judgement, is it not?”

“I suppose.” But he’s not convinced. Who’s to say that the goddess was just biding her divine punishment for him? For every noble pickpocketed clean, for every bakery with fresh bread stolen straight from the oven, for every life taken on the battlefield, what would the goddess have in store?

Ingrid senses the growing preoccupation in the way he slows the grind of the mortar and pestle. “But what I do know for sure,” she begins as Ashe promptly lifts his head out of the fog of his thoughts to turn his attention on her, “is that the goddess Seiros knows that you only did what you had to do to survive.” She stops her chopping and places the knife on the countertop. “And now, you’re trying to make it so that others won’t have to go through the same things you did.”

He looks down at his feet with gritted teeth and fists clenched. “Is that enough?” There is fear laced in the wobble of his voice and uncertainty etched between his words. It’s true that he sometimes slips some bread in the hands of the begging children and doesn’t drive a hard deal with struggling merchants. He sees himself in every one of them, through all their hardships and suffering. But is any of it justification?

Ingrid picks up the knife and resumes chopping. “I don’t know either,” she says, “but she knows you’re just trying to do your best. Doesn’t that count for something?”

When Ashe looks over his shoulder, he’s able to make out a smile peeping through the corner of her lips, soft yet proud. He swears that if he ever knew his mother, she would be so much like Ingrid, the way she breaks him down and builds him up again. Tears begin to well up and he has to hide behind the crest of his bangs, nostalgic for someone he’s never known. All his life, Ashe has done nothing but try his best and if that didn’t count for something, then he didn’t know what did.

Ashe grabs the pestle in his hand and allows a smile to creep over him as well. “Then it looks like I’ll just have to continue doing my best.”


End file.
